As a piece of hardware, the PS3 is fantastic. Blu-Ray, a bunch of slick wireless capabilities, etc. make it a great media center. I think one of the problems with the PS3 is that Sony doesn't have good software guys. The UI isn't great, the way they handle updates is a drag, and there's a lot of "clunk" to it in general. Still may favorite console of this gen though.

It's pretty simple. A bunch of Half-Life fans have gotten together to send crowbars to Valve, including real crowbars, emails of crowbar pics, etc. in order to express their frustration with Valve's lack of communication after the cliffhanger of Episode 2.

Thoughts? Seems like pretty harmless fun to me, and possibly a good reminder to Valve. I believe the operation is being headed from here if anyone is interested:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2460658

Baldur's Gate 2, no competition. NWN is the game you play because you've already exhausted the BG games, not something you'd play instead.

Of course, NWN is still a great game, but it isn't nearly as deep as BG2. The story and characters just aren't quite as developed or interesting. Play both, but play BG2 first.

I'm with VinnoT, but you should start with BG1 and play through everything up to and including Throne of Bhall. Yes, the first few hours of the first game are a bit of a slog, but it's ultimately worth it.

Also, it's only 6 years old, but Bloodlines is a good one.

Most CS fans will say 1.6. I like Source. They're almost identical to newcomers (except Source has better graphics); the differences are mainly apparent to CS veterans who literally wanted no changes and just new graphics from Source. Boy do they hate Source.

I've never played Condition Zero, so I can't comment on that.

Oh and CS 1.6 and Source both have tons of players. Seems about equal from I can tell.

They're citing a poll. That wouldn't fly in any kind of peer reviewed study, sorry. Even if it were true that music piracy helps the music industry (and it may well be) it would be a huge mistake to claim that the video game and music industries are analagous. They aren't.

Where did they dismiss that it's an MMO? I'd think I would have heard about that. All the rumors are that it IS an MMO, but those are, of course, just rumors.

What does a poorly-cited college propaganda pamphlet have to do with this? They couldn't even properly describe copyright law, let alone present a decent argument against it. They probably handed it out with a bunch of ridiculous 9/11 Truth and Crmiethink pamphlets too. Irrelevant.

To the question of whether or not piracy hurts game sales, it does. However, I don't think that's a good reason to sit idly by and not complain about inconvenient DRM practices. What Gabe Newell was saying wasn't that piracy isn't bad, it was that it's much more effective to fight piracy with positive insentives than with negative ones, since DRM hurts paying customers and has a small effect on piracy. And he's right, hence why Valve is doing great on PC.

The Call of Duty games have been called the Michael Bay of video games, and that's you're answer right there. They have mass appeal, even if they're somewhat lacking in depth and coherence (in my opinion). They're bombastic and give a wide variety of people what they want from a game. Hell, my girlfriend is the definition of a casual gamer and she LOVES COD games.

I don't see anything wrong with it, but every time I play one I'm let down. They just don't do it for me the way Half-Life and a few of the other large FPS franchises do. I do think this "game a year" strategy that Lackovision is following is going to bite them in the butt eventually though. Even diehards will get fatigued by the series eventually.